The language of learning

The children are using the symbols of the Solo Taxonomy to clearly articulate their learning. What I am most happy with is the way we are using the rubrics to identify the WTN steps.I feel that the children are becoming more empowered to know what to do to improve the related aspect of learning.The children are more able to direct their next learning steps.
I have made posters of the taxonomy symbols and their related thinking words. These are posted around the room but are also stuck to the desks in each group.
This allows us to identify levels and range of thinking all the time. It also gives the children the language they need when talking about their thinking or reflecting on or talking about their learning.The posters also help us collaborative develop levels of thinking when establishing the rubrics.


There are different HOT maps that support the development of different types of thinking. As we develop these types of thinking, our ability to articulate our learning improves because we have the understanding of a specific type of thinking and the language to articulate this type of thinking.
I am focusing on actually teaching how to think in specific ways eg. if I wanted the children to contrast and compare Equality and Exclusion, I need to teach this skill and we need to have practice. These are the HOT maps that relate to the different types of thinking.

We looked at comparing and contrasting appearance. Partners sat knee to knee and spent five minutes carefully looking at each other. They wrote down what they thought was similar or common about their features and what was different. This was our starting point when talking about what does it mean to compare and contrast. We also talked about other words that might mean the same as compare and contrast. We talked about what we are actually doing when we compare and contrast and also where we would use this type of thinking in everyday life.
We had an interesting discussion about how comparing and contrasting related to Habits of Mind and which Habits of Mind specifically.
We then used the Taxonomy to establish our rubric for comparing and contrasting Exclusion and Equality. This happened over two days.


In Science we have worked on developing definitions, making predictions and evaluating. We have also analysed our results.







This is the template that we are using to collaboratively develop our rubrics